Why Rwanda’s development bank is backing a $6 million venture debt fund

Venture capital is built around finding outliers: the one company in a portfolio capable of returning an entire fund. But when you apply that logic to Rwanda, a landlocked market of fewer than 20 million people, and, as Magnifique Ishimwe puts it, no startup fits the profile.

Their revenue could be growing, but a billion-dollar exit is unlikely, so most investors walk away. While the…